Chelsea’s Cole Palmer has been pretty faultless since he joined the club in the summer, but he had a very frustrating time in tonight’s cup tie against Middlesbrough.
The Blues travelled to the Riverside Stadium on Tuesday evening to play Championship club Middlesbrough in the first leg of a Carabao Cup semi-final.
Mauricio Pochettino’s side have left themselves with lots of work to do in the second leg after a surprise 1-0 away defeat.
Hayden Hackney’s first-half goal earned Boro a win on the night and an advantage in the semi-final clash
The teams will meet again on Tuesday 23 January for the decisive second leg.
TalkSPORT pundit Dean Ashton didn’t hold back with his criticism of Chelsea’s Cole Palmer during the midweek cup fixture.
The 21-year-old playmaker was asked to play further up field tonight in a false nine position, which shouldn’t be a problem when you see the way he’s been scoring for fun this season.
However, the England star was completely misfiring blanks by spurning several first-half chances in front of goal.
His worst of the bunch was a simple volley from close-range into an unguarded net, but he put it over the bar on his favoured left foot.
When reacting to Palmer’s miss, Ashton told talkSPORT (8:50pm, 9 January): “This is a shocker. It bounces off his chest straight to Palmer, and he puts it over. That is pretty unacceptable.”
Cole Palmer miss against Middlesbrough
We’re not going to go overboard on criticism of Palmer, the club’s outstanding individual from the first half of the season. He’ll know more than anyone it was his worse night in a Chelsea shirt so far.
He had a hat-trick of great chances to score all pass him by in the opening 45 minutes.
This is a player with eight goals and seven assists in 20 games before tonight, so we’re confident he’ll bounce back from this disappointment.
Unfortunately, it was a night when the trick of playing Palmer as the central striker failed.
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